HARVARD COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PREFACE In this outline of our literary progress it is especially designed to show how essentially American literature has been an outgrowth of American life. A people originally of English stock and increasingly open to European influences, we have nevertheless a national character, modified by local conditions, and a national point of view. Hence our literature, while in one aspect a branch of the noble parent literature of England, is rightly viewed, also, as the individual expression of an independent nation. Its significance to us, whose history it embodies and interprets, naturally outranks its absolute value among the older literatures of the world. It is obvious that the limits of this survey forbid the mention of every distinguished name. Sincere acknowledgments are due to the publishers for their patience, to Mr. Herbert Putnam and other officers of the Boston Public Library for their courtesy, and to my colleagues, Miss Lydia B. Godfrey, Wellesley librarian, and Professor Katharine Coman, for bibliographical and critical suggestions. The portraits of Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Hawthorne, and Thoreau appear by special permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. That of Irving is reproduced by permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's sons. Mr. William Evarts Benjamin, too, has kindly allowed the reproduction of his plates of Lanier, Parkman, and Cotton Mather, while for the likenesses of Lowell and Mrs. Stowe we are indebted to the friendliness of Mr. Francis V. Balch of Jamaica Plain, Mass., and Mrs. Samuel Scoville of Stamford, Conn. K. L. B. |